Major Powers Urge UN To Start Syria Air Drops

Ambassador Francois Delattre of France, which now chairs the UN Security Council, called for airdrops to all areas in need and blamed the regime for blocking access to besieged villages and towns.

“You need the consent of government”, UN Deputy Syria Envoy Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy said at a press conference in Geneva on Thursday, adding he was not aware of any such permission from the Russian-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.

Beirut:A humanitarian aid convoy on Wednesday entered the rebel-held Syrian town of Daraya, the Red Cross said, in the first such delivery since a regime siege began in 2012.

The UN believes there are more than 4.6m people living in hard-to-reach areas in Syria, including almost 600,000 in besieged areas. “We need all parties to allow freedom of movement for civilians and humanitarian access”.

The ISSG humanitarian taskforce will meet on Thursday to review progress on getting aid to more than a million people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

“Airdrops are much more complicated and much less effective and so I think we need to continue to pursue with land deliveries”, Churkin said.

Foua and Kafraya, two Shia towns in Idlib province, are considered besieged by rebel forces, while Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria is considered besieged by the Islamic State group, and has already been targeted with air drops.

“What is at stake here is the necessity to put an end to a humanitarian disaster”, French Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters ahead of the meeting.

Diplomats said they expected Damascus to take some time to respond to the request - if it responds at all - and United Nations officials have said the airdrops are not imminent. As of Friday morning, there was still no set date for delivery of the balance of the aid.

In her pre-recorded speech at a panel in Washington D.C. Thursday over global alliance to degrade Daesh and al-Qaeda, Shaaban had also said the Syrian government was in talks with the United Nations to allow aid shipments to go in. He declined to provide details. “The reason we were not able to go by land access is lack of government approval”.

He called for active American and Russian backing, saying “there is a limit to what the United Nations can do” on its own.

He also said the United Nations was adding another town, al-Waer in Homs province, to its list of “besieged” areas - now numbering 19.

Syria’s opposition has warned that the government may open the door just enough to defuse the worldwide pressure before restricting access again.

Allowing aid into areas under siege is key for the resumption of peace talks on ending the five-year war that has killed 280,000 Syrians and displaced millions.

The Anadolu Agency, citing military officials, said Wednesday that the strikes by USA -led coalition jets targeted IS positions north of the city of Aleppo, destroying a tank, two mortar positions, a headquarters’ building and three vehicles.

“The first lesson is that pressure and ultimatums are the only way we get the regime to hear anything”, she said.

Russia, like Assad’s other ally Iran, is widely seen as having significant influence over the Damascus government. “No we are not”, Churkin said.